Last Night At Adams AFB
by Camwynya
Summary: Even the Enclave's soldiers have their own interests and moments of harmless indulgence. Say hi to one of their surveillance specialists.


Specialist Ken "Skippy" Akaishatsu had the night shift in the communication center of the great mobile crawler, a duty post that lasted into the long dark hours of the night. It was a lonely shift, one with less company- and less to actually _do_- than even the foot patrols around the Adams perimeter. Ken envied those men a little, sometimes. But only sometimes. If he was being honest with himself, he had to admit that he really didn't mind the solitude. Sitting at the comms console, looking out into the star-spangled night, he had time to understand just how much the Wasteland had been through all those years that he and his parents had lived in the isolation of Raven Rock. There was so much darkness out there, so much unnecessary deprivation... and the Enclave could put an end to all that. Maybe not the way they'd originally planned, in one clean sweep, but even slow progress was better than none at all, right?

(If anyone had asked him, he would have said that it was probably _better_ this way. The President's plan to wipe out all mutations at once made the skin on the back of his neck crawl. But nobody had asked him, so he kept his mouth shut.)

Progress, unfortunately, had its enemies in every age. Hence the need for the night watch. Somewhere out there were the mad cultists of the Brotherhood of Steel, obsessed with keeping technology 'out of the wrong hands'. They'd been quiet since the Bradley-Hercules satellite had taken out their death robot, but Specialist Akaishatsu knew they were out there. It wasn't as if anybody _else_ had radio capability for him to listen in on. Them, their mouthpiece Three Dog... well, and the woman with the violin.

Agatha, that was her name. He actually rather liked her broadcasts. That violin of hers produced the most incredible music he could remember ever hearing. When she died, he hoped the brass would make a special point of finding where she'd been broadcasting from and ensuring that somebody really worthy inherited her violin. Nothing else he'd ever heard made a sound like that. There plenty of nights when he made a few adjustments to the equipment and tuned one of the antennas into her frequency, just to have something really worth listening to.

And then there were nights like this. Magnificent as Agatha's violin was, sometimes you just... needed something else. Not the stuff Three Dog put out in between his rants- Akaishatsu had heard all of those songs often enough that the mere opening notes of "I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire" made him want to throw things, and it was best not to even ithink/i the words "Butcher Pete" in his presence. But if you had the resources- say, a parent with access to the physical archives of the Societal Preservation Program- and were willing to put up with a sound Ireally/i unlike any other, there were alternatives.

He probably shouldn't have had the record player. He was on duty; he was supposed to listen quietly and pay attention to even the slightest hint of possible trouble. But he had two sharp ears, and he only needed one to do his job. The other one could, he figured, be spared. And there was no one else around to ask where he got the record from, or why it was in a language no one alive still spoke- or what the _hell_ that style was supposed to be. Even with a childhood filled with all the historical recordings a boy could sit still for, Specialist Akaishatsu had never been able to figure out how the Germans had, long ago, developed music like this. It made the stolen moments with the record all the more precious, and he smiled to himself as he oh-so-slowly lowered the needle.

Ah, there was the familiar drumbeat, and the strange, synthetic instruments- and there, the words, only one of which he even had a guess about...

_"Moskau_

_Fremd und geheimnisvoll_

_Türme aus rotem Gold_

_Kalt wie das Eis..."_

Specialist Akaishatsu leaned back in his chair with a happy sigh. The volume was down low, of course, so it wouldn't interfere with his listening duties- but he still knew every syllable by heart.

_"Moskau_

_Doch wer dich wirklich kennt_

_Der weiß, ein Feuer brennt_

_In dir so heiß_

_Kosaken hey hey hey hebt die Gläser hey hey!_

_Natascha ha ha ha du bist schön!_

_Towarisch hey hey hey auf das Leben!_

_Auf Dein Wohl Bruder hey Bruder ho-"_

He hastily glanced around to make absolutely, positively sure no one else was around, and when he was absolutely sure nobody else was present, Specialist Akaishatsu allowed himself the luxury of dancing in his chair, bouncing joyfully from one side to the other in time with the chorus.

_"Moskau, Moskau!_

_Wirf die Gläser an die Wand_

_Russland is ein schönes Land_

_Ho ho ho ho ho, hey!_

_Moskau, Moskau!_

_Deine Seele ist so groß_

_Nachts da ist der Teufel los_

_Ha ha ha ha ha,** hey!"**_

Nights like this, it didn't take much to make Specialist Akaishatsu happy.

* * *

><p>Somewhere around the third time he set the needle down, Specialist Akaishatsu heard a scuffing noise that wasn't part of the song. He froze.<p>

There- again. And not from behind him, but from the monitoring equipment. Silently, Akaishatsu stretched out one hand and lifted the needle away from the record. He tilted his head, listened-

Specialist Akaishatsu had been caught indulging in his musical pastimes before, and rightly ought to have been punished for it. There had never been any worse fate offered him than a verbal reprimand, and for good reason: no other Enclave soldier alive could switch from self-indulgence to pure professionalism as swiftly and as effectively.

"Major Watson, sir, this is Specialist Akaishatsu. Visitors have breached the south perimeter, sir."

_"What the-_ breached?_ As in-"_

"As in they're already inside, sir. No word from the nearest patrol but I'm picking up radio chatter and south perimeter turrets four, six, and seven have- correction, turrets four, _five_, six and seven have gone offline, sir."

_"Shit. **Shit**. Raise that patrol and wake everyone not currently on duty."_ There was a pause._ "Do our guests have their mascot with them?"_

"One moment, sir." He flicked the volume down on the Major's radio link briefly, then back up again. "In their forward ranks, sir. Sounds like they've got that mutant freak as well."

_"Dammit, I knew things were too quiet. Signal Captain Ryan. Tell him and the rest of Sigma Squad I want them to find that Vault bitch and bring me her head. Or the equivalent volume of ashes if that's all that's left. Watson out."_

"Yes, sir. Akaishatsu out," said Akaishatsu, and leaned over to take the record off the turntable and tuck it back into its sleeve. Better to put it someplace safe. The Brotherhood was bad enough, but where 101 went, total destruction tended to follow.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: I'm aware that 'Akaishatsu' isn't a real Japanese surname. It's a minor joke; I'm told it means 'red shirt', as in the redshirts on the original <em>Star Trek, <em>who tended to die at the drop of a hat when an expendable character was needed.

Also, the song he's listening to is Moskau, by Dschingis Khan.


End file.
